The English Patient

Some excerpts from the co-winner of the Booker Prize for 1992, The English Patient, written by Michael Ondaatje.

[A conversation between Hana and Kip, out in the fields where Kip has accidentally uncovered mine wires and is trying to dismantle a bomb and Hana finds herself too in the fix.]

She was looking at him, quizzical, waiting for his answer to what she had said, but he hadn't heard her. She shook her head and sad down. He started collecting various objects around himself, putting them into his satchel. She looked up into the tree and then only by chance looked back down and saw his hands shaking, tense and hard like an epileptic's, his breathing deep and fast, over in a moment. He was crouched over.

"Did you hear what I said?"

"No. What was it?"

"I thought I was going to die. I wanted to die. And I thought if I was going to die I would die with you. Someone like you, young as I am, I saw so many dying near me last year. I didn't feel scared. I certainly wasn't brave just now. I thought to myself, We have this villa this grass, we should have lain down together, you in my arms, before we died. I wanted to touch that bone at your neck, collarbone, it's like a small wing under your skin. I wanted to place my fingers against it. I've always liked flesh the colour of rivers and rocks or like the brown eye of a Sudan, do you know what flower that is? Have you seen them? I am so tired, Kip, I want to sleep. I want to sleep under this tree, put my eye against your collarbone I just want to close my eyes without thinking of others, want to find the crook of a tree and climb into it and sleep. What a careful mind! To know which wire to cut. How did you know? You kept saying I don't know I don't know, but you did. Right? Don't shake, you have to be a still bed for me, let me curl up as if you were a good grandfather I could hug, I love the word 'curl', such a slow word, you can't rush it...."

[pg 102-103]

"She entered the story knowing she would emerge from it feeling she had been immersed in the lives of others, in plots that stretched back twenty years, her body full of sentences and moments, as if awaking from sleep with a heaviness caused by unremembered dreams."

[pg 12]

Sharing.

Letters to a Young Poet- part 2

Rilke, in "Letters to a Young Poet":

"We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."

Borgebygard, Fladie, Sweden
August 12, 1904

On the importance of being aware of one's own silence:

"It must be immense, this silence, in which sounds and movements have room, and if one thinks that along with all this the presence of the distant sea also resounds, perhaps as the innermost note in this prehistoric harmony, then one can only wish that you are trustingly and patiently letting the magnificent solitude work upon you, this solitude which can no longer be erased from your life; which, in everything that is in store for you to experience and to do, will act as an anonymous influence, continuously and gently decisive, rather as the blood of our ancestors incessantly moves in us and combines with our own to form the unique, unrepeatable being that we are at every turning of our life."

Paris
The day after Christmas, 1908

Some more Rilke for the soul..

Some excerpts from "Letters To a Young Poet".

"..And if what is near you is far away, then your vastness is already among the stars and is very great; be happy about your growth, in which of course you can’t take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don’t torment them with your doubts and don’t frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn’t be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn’t necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust. Avoid providing material for the drama that is always stretched tight between parents and children; it uses up much of the children’s strength and wastes the love of the elders, which acts and warms even if it doesn’t comprehend. Don’t ask for any advice from them and don’t expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like and inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it."

-Rome

October 29, 1903

Speaking on solitude:

"...But when you notice that it is vast, you should be happy; for what (you should ask yourself) would a solitude be that was not vast; there is only one solitude, and it is vast, heavy, difficult to bear, and almost everyone has hours when he would gladly exchange it for any kind of sociability, however trivial or cheap, for the tiniest outward agreement with the first person who comes along, the most unworthy. . . . But perhaps these are the very hours during which solitude grows; for its growing is painful as the growing of boys and sad as the beginning of spring. But that must not confuse you. What is necessary, after all, is only this: solitude, vast inner solitude. To walk inside yourself and meet no one for hours — that is what you must be able to attain. To be solitary as you were when you were a child, when the grown-ups walked around involved with matters that seemed large and important because they looked so busy and because you didn’t understand a thing about what they were doing.."

-Rome

December 23, 1903

Rilke and some musings

Oh I have fallen head over heals in love with Rilke.

No-- that isn't an entirely new affair. It has been flourishing in episodes modestly accommodated among so many crashes and burns. But this time around, I can feel it surge in me..almost like love. Nah, like love alone.

I was reminded of this quote by him which appeared in the titles of "Loving Anabelle", in the shower this evening:

"For one human to love another: that's perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the work for which all other work is but preparation."

That makes so much sense to me right now, on this day. So let me just revel in this moment if you will excuse me!

And here's some more of Rilke.. this one indeed sits well with the mood.

You who never arrivedin my arms, Beloved, who were lostfrom the start,I don't even know what songswould please you. I have given up tryingto recognize you in the surging wave of the nextmoment. All the immenseimages in me-- the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,cities, towers, and bridges, and unsuspectedturns in the path,and those powerful lands that were oncepulsing with the life of the gods-all rise within me to meanyou, who forever elude me.You, Beloved, who are allthe gardens I have ever gazed at,longing. An open windowin a country house--, and you almoststepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon,--you had just walked down them and vanished.And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrorswere still dizzy with your presence and, startled,gave back my too-sudden image. Who knows?perhaps the same bird echoed through both of usyesterday, seperate, in the evening...
You Who Never Came: Translated by Stephen Mitchell. 

How To (and How Not To) Write Poetry

Advice for blocked writers and aspiring poets from a Nobel Prize winner’s newspaper column.

BY WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA

The following are selections from columns originally published in the Polish newspaper Literary Life. In these columns, famed poet Wislawa Szymborska answered letters from ordinary people who wanted to write poetry. Translated by Clare Cavanagh, they appeared in slightly different form in our Journals section earlier this year.

To Heliodor from Przemysl: “You write, ‘I know my poems have many faults, but so what, I’m not going to stop and fix them.’ And why is that, oh Heliodor? Perhaps because you hold poetry so sacred? Or maybe you consider it insignificant? Both ways of treating poetry are mistaken, and what’s worse, they free the novice poet from the necessity of working on his verses. It’s pleasant and rewarding to tell our acquaintances that the bardic spirit seized us on Friday at 2:45 p.m. and began whispering mysterious secrets in our ear with such ardor that we scarcely had time to take them down. But at home, behind closed doors, they assiduously corrected, crossed out, and revised those otherworldly utterances. Spirits are fine and dandy, but even poetry has its prosaic side.”

To H.O. from Poznan, a would-be translator: “The translator is obliged to be faithful not only to the text. He must also reveal the full beauty of the poetry while retaining its form and preserving as completely as possible the epoch’s spirit and style.”

To Grazyna from Starachowice: “Let’s take the wings off and try writing on foot, shall we?”

To Mr. G. Kr. of Warsaw: “You need a new pen. The one you’re using makes a lot of mistakes. It must be foreign.”

To Pegasus [sic] from Niepolomice: “You ask in rhyme if life makes cents [sic]. My dictionary answers in the negative.”

To Mr. K.K. from Bytom: “You treat free verse as a free-for-all. But poetry (whatever we may say) is, was, and will always be a game. And as every child knows, all games have rules. So why do the grown-ups forget?”

To Puszka from Radom: “Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens?”

To Boleslaw L-k. of Warsaw: “Your existential pains come a trifle too easily. We’ve had enough despair and gloomy depths. ‘Deep thoughts,’ dear Thomas says (Mann, of course, who else), ‘should make us smile.’ Reading your own poem ‘Ocean,’ we found ourselves floundering in a shallow pond. You should think of your life as a remarkable adventure that’s happened to you. That is our only advice at present.”

To Marek, also of Warsaw: “We have a principle that all poems about spring are automatically disqualified. This topic no longer exists in poetry. It continues to thrive in life itself, of course. But these are two separate matters.”

To B.L. from the vicinity of Wroclaw: “The fear of straight speaking, the constant, painstaking efforts to metaphorize everything, the ceaseless need to prove you’re a poet in every line: these are the anxieties that beset every budding bard. But they are curable, if caught in time.”

To Zb. K. of Poznan: “You’ve managed to squeeze more lofty words into three short poems than most poets manage in a lifetime: ‘Fatherland,’ ‘truth,’ ‘freedom,’ ‘justice’: such words don’t come cheap. Real blood flows in them, which can’t be counterfeited with ink.”

To Michal in Nowy Targ: “Rilke warned young poets against large sweeping topics, since those are the most difficult and demand great artistic maturity. He counseled them to write about what they see around them, how they live each day, what’s been lost, what’s been found. He encouraged them to bring the things that surround us into their art, images from dreams, remembered objects. ‘If daily life seems impoverished to you,’ he wrote, ‘don’t blame life. You yourself are to blame. You’re just not enough of a poet to perceive its wealth.’ This advice may seem mundane and dim-witted to you. This is why we called to our defense one of the most esoteric poets in world literature—and just see how he praised so-called ordinary things!”

To Ula from Sopot: “A definition of poetry in one sentence—well. We know at least five hundred definitions, but none of them strikes us as both precise and capacious enough. Each expresses the taste of its own age. Inborn skepticism keeps us from trying our hand at our own. But we remember Carl Sandburg’s lovely aphorism: ‘Poetry is a diary kept by a sea creature who lives on land and wishes he could fly.’ Maybe he’ll actually make it one of these days?”

To L-k B-k of Slupsk: “We require more from a poet who compares himself to Icarus than the lengthy poem enclosed reveals. Mr. B-k, you fail to reckon with the fact that today’s Icarus rises above a different landscape than that of ancient times. He sees highways covered in cars and trucks, airports, runways, large cities, expansive modern ports, and other such realia. Might not a jet rush past his ear at times?”

To T.W., Krakow: “In school no time is spent, alas, on the aesthetic analysis of literary works. Central themes are stressed along with their historical context. Such knowledge is of course crucial, but it will not suffice for anyone wishing to become a good, independent reader, let alone for someone with creative ambitions. Our young correspondents are often shocked that their poem about rebuilding postwar Warsaw or the tragedy of Vietnam might not be good. They’re convinced that honorable intentions preempt form. But if you want to become a decent cobbler, it’s not enough to enthuse over human feet. You have to know your leather, your tools, pick the right pattern, and so forth. . . . It holds true for artistic creation too.”

To Mr. Br. K. of Laski: “Your poems in prose are permeated by the figure of the Great Poet who creates his remarkable works in a state of alcoholic euphoria. We might take a wild guess at whom you have in mind, but it’s not last names that concern us in the final analysis. Rather, it’s the misguided conviction that alcohol facilitates the act of writing, emboldens the imagination, sharpens wits, and performs many other useful functions in abetting the bardic spirit. My dear Mr. K., neither this poet, nor any of the others personally known to us, nor indeed any other poet has ever written anything great under the unadulterated influence of hard liquor. All good work arose in painstaking, painful sobriety, without any pleasant buzzing in the head. ‘I’ve always got ideas, but after vodka my head aches,’ Wyspianski said. If a poet drinks, it’s between one poem and the next. This is the stark reality. If alcohol promoted great poetry, then every third citizen of our nation would be a Horace at least. Thus we are forced to explode yet another legend. We hope that you will emerge unscathed from beneath the ruins.”

To E.L. in Warsaw: “Perhaps you could learn to love in prose.”

To Esko from Sieradz: “Youth really is an intriguing period in one’s life. If one adds writerly ambitions to the difficulties of youth, one must possess an exceptionally strong constitution in order to cope. Its components should include: persistence, diligence, wide reading, curiosity, observation, distance toward oneself, sensitivity to others, a critical mind, a sense of humor, and an abiding conviction that the world deserves a) to keep existing, and b) better luck than it’s had thus far. The efforts you’ve sent signal only the desire to write and none of the other virtues described above. You have your work cut out for you.”

To Kali of Lodz: “‘Why’ is the most important word in this planet’s language, and probably in that of other galaxies as well.”

To Mr. Pal-Zet of Skarysko-Kam: “The poems you’ve sent suggest that you’ve failed to perceive a key difference between poetry and prose. For example, the poem entitled ‘Here’ is merely a modest prose description of a room and the furniture it holds. In prose such descriptions perform a specific function: they set the stage for the action to come. In a moment the doors will open, someone will enter, and something will take place. In poetry the description itself must ‘take place.’ Everything becomes significant, meaningful: the choice of images, their placement, the shape they take in words. The description of an ordinary room must become before our eyes the discovery of that room, and the emotion contained by that description must be shared by the readers. Otherwise, prose will stay prose, no matter how hard you work to break your sentences into lines of verse. And what’s worse, nothing happens afterwards.”


courtesy: poetryfoundation.org >> find poems. discover poetry.

The Silencing

The Silencing of Theo van Gogh.

The Dangers of Relativism.

I think relativism is the dangerous death of liberalism. If you will justify anything that anybody does because it comes from their tradition, it means you abdicate your moral sense and you cease to be a moral being. Going back to the article you mentioned which talks about the question of women, if you were to take religion away as the justification, nobody would tolerate that for a minute. The kinds of limitations that women have been placed under and the crimes against women in the name of religion are so profound, and yet somehow people don't get as agitated about them as when the same things are done by somebody who wasn't using God as the reason. That seems like nonsense to me.

-Salman Rushdie, in conversation with Gauri Viswanathan of Columbia University.

Some excerpts from the conversation which was published in The Hindu this month. I adore this man to an atom!

VIII

Lest I should know you too easily, you play with me.

You blind me with flashes of laughter to hide your tears.

I know, I know your art;

You never say the word you would.

Lest I should prize you not, you elude me in a thousand ways.

Lest I should mix you with the crowd, you stand aside.

I know, I know your art;

You never walk the path you would.

Your claim is more than others; that is why you are silent.

With a playful carelessness you avoid my gifts.

I know, I know your art;

You never accept what you would.

Francesca- by Ezra Pound.

You came in out of the night
And there were flowers in your hand, 
Now you will come out of a confusion of people, 
Out of a turmoil of speech about you. 

I who have seen you amid the primal things 
Was angry when they spoke your name
IN ordinary places.
 I would that the cool waves might flow over my mind, 
And that the world should dry as a dead leaf, 
Or as a dandelion see-pod and be swept away, 
So that I might find you again, 
Alone.

Heinrich Theodor Böll- nobel lecture 1972.

Writing is - at least for me - movement forward, the conquest of a body that I do not know at all, away from something to something that I do not yet know; I never know what will happen - and here 'happen' is not intended as plot resolution, in the sense of classical dramaturgy, but in the sense of a complicated and complex experiment that with given imaginary, spiritual, intellectual and sensual materials in interaction strives - on paper to boot! - towards incarnation. In this respect there can be no successful literature, nor would there be any successful music or painting, because no one can already have seen the object it is striving to become, and in this respect everything that is superficially called modern, but which is better named living art, is experiment and discovery - and transient, can be estimated and measured only in its historical relativity, and it appears to me irrelevant to speak of eternal values, or to seek them. How will we survive without this gap, this remainder, which can be called irony, be called poetry, be called God, fiction, or resistance?

-Heinrich Theodor Böll, nobel lecture 1972.

On the importance of humanity over patriotism

Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin. I am proud of my humanity when I can acknowledge the poets and artists of other countries as my own. Let me feel with unalloyed gladness that all the great glories of man are mine. Therefore it hurts me deeply when the cry of rejection rings loud against the West in my country with the clamour that Western education can only injure us.


-Tagore

6 impossible things

""I can't believe that!" said Alice.

"Can't you?" the queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes."

Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said. "One can't believe impossible things."

"I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, some times I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

When you dare to dream, many marvels can be accomplished. The trouble is, most people never start dreaming their impossible dream. "

p.s: found this in an old newsletter today. loved it enough to keep it.

The Ending

He sat by the southern window after the sun had set. It was the best hour to view the Taj- the saddest. He heard nothing, just the silence of the completed mausoleum free of labourers and architects. Not a leaf stirred in the garden, the river still like a mirror. The bazaar and the caravanserai were empty, not even a beggar stooped for alms before the mosque's closed door. The Emperor had left with his soldiers on a campaign far from Agra.

He saw the Chota Mimar crossing the mountains on a mule as he returned home to Persia, stopping every now and then to cast a look back at the queen's tomb - glowing in the dark like the heart of an angel.

the ending of The Accountant, from the Japanese Wife by Kunal Basu.

Byron's

But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think;
'Tis strange, the shortest letter which man uses
Instead of speech, may form a lasting link
Of ages; to what straits old Time reduces
Frail man, when paper - even a rag like this - ,
Survives himself, his tomb, and all that's his.

from Don Juan

Milk (2010)

Dan White: Society can't exist without the family.
Harvey Milk: We're not against that.
Dan White: Can two men reproduce?
Harvey Milk: No, but God knows we keep trying.


-Milk

Milk (2010)

Politics is theater. It doesn't matter if you win. You make a statement. You say, 'I'm here, pay attention to me.'
-Milk

The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.


-Wislawa Szymborska

Passing Time

Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk

One paints the beginning
of a certain end.

The other, the end of a
sure beginning.

-Maya Angelou

Paulie: Lesbian? Lesbian? Are you f*cking kidding me, you think I'm a LESBIAN?
Mouse: You're a girl in love with a girl, aren't you?
Paulie: No! I'm PAULIE in love with TORI. Remember? And Tori, she is, she IS in love with me because she is mine and I am hers and neither of us are LESBIANS!

I am too tired tonight to sleep. I lie companionless. The white clouds gut the sky. Orion, Pleaids, Plough, all signs and certainities are lost to vision now. - From Heaven Lake, Vikram Seth.

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make.
-Gilbert K. Chesterton

"Straight Americans need... an education of the heart and soul. They must understand - to begin with - how it can feel to spend years denying your own deepest truths, to sit silently through classes, meals, and church services while people you love toss off remarks that brutalize your soul."
-Bruce Bawer

"Homosexuality is god's way of insuring that the truly gifted aren't burdened with children."
--Sam Austin

His petty, prideful self has died, and he is well rid of it. Siddhartha the Brahmin has died. Siddhartha the Samana has died. Siddhartha the profligate sensualist has died. Siddhartha lives!

- If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/06/lesbian-parents-welladjusted-teens-makes-sense.html

Hues may vary, but humanity does not.

-Slogan from Chennai Pride, 2009.

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains
unawakened.

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

-Cassius

"The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages."

 -Virginia Woolf

The Quarrel

by Linda Pastan

If there were a monument

to silence, it would not be

the tree whose leaves

murmur continuously

among themselves;

nor would it be the pond

whose seeming stillness

is shattered

by the quicksilver

surfacing of fish.

If there were a monument

to silence, it would be you

standing so upright, so unforgiving,

your mute back deflecting

every word I say.

poetryfoundation.org

The Obligation to be Happy

by Linda Pastan

It is more onerous

than the rites of beauty

or housework, harder than love.

But you expect it of me casually,

the way you expect the sun

to come up, not in spite of rain

or clouds but because of them.

And so I smile, as if my own fidelity

to sadness were a hidden vice—

that downward tug on my mouth,

my old suspicion that health

and love are brief irrelevancies,

no more than laughter in the warm dark

strangled at dawn.

Happiness. I try to hoist it

on my narrow shoulders again—

a knapsack heavy with gold coins.

I stumble around the house,

bump into things.

Only Midas himself

would understand.

Why Are Your Poems So Dark?

awesome awesome awesome

Proust's moon.

Sometimes in the afternoon sky a white moon would creep up like a little cloud, furtive, without display, suggesting an actress who does not have to 'come on' for a while, and so goes 'in front' in her ordinary clothes to watch the rest of the company for a moment, but keeps in the background, not wishing to attract attention to herself.


I have never read anything quite like this.

When two people part it is the one who is not in love who makes the tender speeches.

Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.

Oh then, perhaps at the end of it all.. we will meet somewhere.

Oh then, perhaps at the end of it all.. things don't change so much. they are all clouds I make things out of.

stiff. forever formal. I should work
at this business of being friends.

does me no good. does me no bad. but leaves
me all sad. so must be bad after all.

how do I make a total fool
of myself, time after time?

-this champion of unrequited love, I amaze myself!

you looked over my shoulders out into the sea, and all this while
I was watching the sun.

Sad that I was watching the sun.

"It is but a short walk now,
an easy slope to the end,
you first or I first
makes no difference,
we will soon meet again."

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

-Romeo And Juliet.

"her language I knew not, but what her eyes said will forever remain eloquent in its anguish."

-tagore

Art thou abroad on this stormy night
on thy journey of love, my friend?
The sky groans like one in despair.

I have no sleep tonight.
Ever and again I open my door and look out on
the darkness, my friend!
I can see nothing before me.
I wonder where lies thy path!
By what dim shore of the ink-black river,
by what far edge of the frowning forest,
through what mazy depth of gloom art thou threading
thy course to come to me, my friend?

-Friend by Tagore

one often meets one's destiny on the road one takes to avoid it. -kung fu panda

It's been so long
since I kissed
a girl..

I have forgotten
what smiles
taste like

“Is that the way to leave, rudely, in the middle of a sentence?”

O I love this one .. Tammy has spelt it out so beautifully! :-)

To be a bad actress is to be a good person.

“Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”

-The Catcher in the Rye